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How to wind up Richard Dawkins

(5:27) New Age guru Deepak Chopra irritates Richard Dawkins in his insistence that theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson claimed atoms were conscious. Chopra was probably refering to this quote by Freeman Dyson: ""t is remarkable that mind enters into our awareness of nature on two separate levels. At the highest level, the level of human consciousness, our minds are somehow directly aware of the complicated flow of electrical and chemical patterns in our brains. At the lowest level, the level of single atoms and electrons, the mind of an observer is again involved in the description of events. Between lies the level of molecular biology, where mechanical models are adequate and mind appears to be irrelevant. But I, as a physicist, cannot help suspecting that there is a logical connection between the two ways in which mind appears in my universe. I cannot help thinking that our awareness of our own brains has something to do with the process which we call "observation" in atomic physics. That is to say, I think our consciousness is not just a passive epiphenomenon carried along by the chemical events in our brains, but is an active agent forcing the molecular complexes to make choices between one quantum state and another. In other words, mind is already inherent in every electron, and the processes of human consciousness differ only in degree but not in kind from the processes of choice between quantum states which we call "chance" when they are made by electrons." Full debate between Chopra and Dawkins: youtu.be/cS9TkIFGLuE

One the subject of awareness, at the rudimentary level, since an atom responds to forces that act on it, it could be said to be exhibiting "awareness." But to go from that use of the word to claiming that atoms are introspective or whatever is typical pseudo scientific nonsense and lying hocus pocus.

One the subject of awareness, at the rudimentary level, since an atom responds to forces that act on it, it could be said to be exhibiting "awareness." But to go from that use of the word to claiming that atoms are introspective or whatever is typical pseudo scientific nonsense and lying hocus pocus.